Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014
Finding similarities and differences with contrast
Convincing character voice
Speech, voice, and point of view
A compare-and-contrast sequence in a piece of creative writing might, in fact, end up reflecting only similarities or only differences, although more often than not, both comparison and contrast are used. When writing a piece that contrasts your ideas, you have to determine the items that are at odds in some way. It’s impossible for you to try differentiating two diverse things altogether.
After you’ve determined your contrasting ideas, it might be useful for you—as it does for many creative writers—to take time to map out a rough outline to assist with organization and demonstrate how your ideas duel. This also helps you have a strong picture of your ideas and when and where they’re most relevant in the overall narrative.
DEFINITION
Contrast is the use of opposing elements, such as colors, forms, or lines, in proximity to produce an intensified effect in a work of creative writing.
It’s often remarked that some of the best movies are so-called “emotional roller coasters.” People also often praise books that contain dramatic ups and downs—those that make readers laugh and cry. In short, readers love narratives with contrast, and most often the ideas behind that contrast is executed through dialogue.
Here’s an example of dialogue contrast from the creative nonfiction piece “Home Court Advantage.” As you read the characters’ voices, try doing so aloud and see if you can determine what they reveal about other aspects of their personality:
Faded old pale yellow school bus, cast off of a wealthier school system, scion of Michigan and another decade, engine knocking, no shocks to speak of, rocking and shuddering along the highway, carrying uniformed middle schoolers westward, raggedy ill-fitting outfits not unlike the seen-better-days bus that bears them: hand-me-downs of classes long since graduated, of teams past—of people grown now into their full bodies.
Boys gathered about the middle of the bus, eyes focused on two of their number seated and facing each other across the aisle, extending their fists so that they almost touch, one of them clutching a tan plastic comb.
“Hold up, fellas,” says a skinny little greasy-haired boy named Lonnie. “Yall haven’t said yet what you’re playin for?”
The contestants, myself one of them, withdraw their fists and peer up at him.
Tye, the boy across from me, responds. “If I win, I gets his lunch money for next week.”
Me, glancing away toward the front of the bus, then beyond it, through the glass, at a distant blue line of ridges on the horizon. I look at Tye and smile a slow smile. “If I win, you have to walk to the top of a hill I point out.”
Questioning look from him as Lonnie assumes again his self-appointed role of referee. “Yall’s bets have been staked,” he says, solemn voice brimming with ridiculous pomp. “Now we got to see who gets first go. I’m thinking of a number between one and a hundred. Fella comes nearest gets dibs at grabbing U’s comb.”
“Easy for me,” I say, chest-thumping the digits on my jersey with the fist that clutches the comb. “Number, name, game. Always the same.”
Tye, confused, squinting at the floor in thought for a moment, then brightening. “Fifty be half-a-hundred and that be what Jordan scored the other night. Put me down for fifty, man.”
Lonnie, solemn again, guiding the proceedings, enjoying his rare authority. “Tye the 2-guard gets it cause the number on my mind, fellas, is sixty-nine. Sixty-nine.”
“Hell yeah!” someone says.
Laughter from everyone, self included.
“Alright now, gentleman,” says Lonnie expectantly, and the smiles on the surrounding faces deepen even as the ones on Tye’s face and mine fade and disappear.
I extend my right fist, Tye’s coming forth to mirror it. Then with my left hand I set the comb down flat just behind the ridge of my knuckles, jagged, uneven teeth facing outward, toward Tye. If an onlooker happened to guess the crude teeth of the comb had been inexpertly sharpened with a pocketknife, breaking off a few in the process, he would be guessing right.
Even as my left hand comes away, Tye’s—fist unclenched, thought and action almost as one—has the comb, ripping it hard to the right. I jerk my hand back and down, but not fast enough to avoid having the skin on the outer three knuckles raked open: a scratch more than a cut, but enough to etch into the flesh a bright crimson line and heap little white curling mounds of flesh on either side of the narrow wound.
Tye laughing and tossing the comb back to me. “This gon be easy money.”
This excerpt, violent as it is, illustrates well the voice contrast among the three main speakers. The narrator, U, seems to use a rather conventional form of English, while Lonnie speaks in a white southern or Appalachian dialect, and Tye employs ebonic language. The fact that U speaks a more conventional type of English makes him the best candidate for narrator in terms of the highest number of readers being able to understand everything he says. Although Lonnie and Tye speak colorfully, albeit differently, readers might struggle with some of the cultural references attached to their socio-cultural backgrounds. The numbers the pair select, for instance—Lonnie’s 69 as a sexual connotation and Tye’s 50 as a reference to the number of points Michael Jordan scored (Tye is wearing Jordan’s number 23 jersey)—won’t be obvious to all readers, yet they also add a sense of realness to the character personalities.
In conclusion, contrast is an element of creative writing that’s not often discussed, but it is key to layered, interesting narratives. It helps you emphasize strong emotion (Tye’s sense of humor), lets you highlight characters (Lonnie’s role as master of ceremonies in bloody knuckles), and can even be worked into symbol and theme (this violent coming-of-age ritual among poor athletic teenage males while en route to a game).